Skiing on Europa

Painted for ‘Galactic Tours’, with text by Bob Shaw. In 1981 we didn’t know how smooth Europa is (or about Jupiter’s radiation belts!), so it seemed reasonable to be able to ski there. However, skis depend upon a thin layer of water, melted by the pressure, and Europan ice is much too cold for that. So I invented Gumm variable-gravity boots to solve this. . . (This gouache painting was used in a book on the airbrush, as an example. I believe I may have been the first artist to show lens flare in this way,)

Published by

David A. Hardy

Former President and currently European Vice President of the IAAA. Art first published in 1952, freelance since 1965. Writer, editor and designer of 'Visions of Space', 1989. Other major books: 'Hardyware', 2001, Futures: 50 Years in Space (with Sir Patrick Moore) 2004, etc., etc. See: http://www.astroart.org/#!hardy-profile/c1a9q
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About the International Association of Astronomical Artists

The IAAA is the world’s only guild of artists dedicated to creating images of space. We paint, draw, sculpt, blow glass, and move pixels to show galaxies, stars, planets, moons, anywhere that the imagination can go, but a camera cannot (yet!). Join now!